Q. Shouldn’t the lions tank the rest of the season since they have no chance at the playoffs? - @DarinDrew219

A. Judging by the mailbag questions this week, Darin’s and others, no one is feeling particularly good right now about the Lions’ season or the direction this team is headed. I get the frustration. The Lions appear to be treading water as teams pass them by in a deep NFC, and last week’s attempt to play football with a baseball lineup has turned almost everyone who writes me on Twitter or email against Jim Caldwell.

On the last part first, according to FiveThirtyEight.com, the Lions stand about an 8% chance to make the playoffs after the Atlanta Falcons beat the New Orleans Saints on Thursday night. If they win their next two games against Tampa and Chicago, completely doable, those odds go up to about 20%. That’s not great, but it’s still worth fighting for and there are plenty of examples of teams catching fire late in the season and making a little playoff run.

Now for the broader topic of tanking, there’s some merit to the “trust the process” approach, but only in certain situations. When you’re desperate for a quarterback and there’s a potential game-changer available at No. 1, by all means tank. That could be the difference between drafting, say, Matthew Stafford and Jason Smith. When you’re in Year 2 of a long rebuild and you’re far removed from playoff contention, an extra loss in December might not be all that bad for the franchise.

But when you’re a Lions team with an established quarterback and veterans across the roster, when you’re staring at a pick outside the top 10 no matter what happens the rest of the way, and, yes, when the playoffs are still a possibility, you try to win every game you can. There’s no reason for the Lions to try and tank.

Q. What area of the Lions teams do you think Golden Tate was referring needed to improve but didn’t share, kept in his mind? - @NickelD1979

A. If you missed Golden Tate’s comments from Wednesday, the wide receiver was asked what’s keeping the Lions from being a great team, and said, “I have it in my head, but I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus. So I’m gonna just keep it to myself.”

Plenty of speculation ensued. Was he talking about coaching? Ownership? The front office? A specific player? Well, Tate has been nothing but complimentary of the first three all season. After last week’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens, he said the Lions have “a good team” and “great coaches,” but he did take a not-so-subtle jab at one specific part of the team.

“When your quarterback’s on the ground week in and week out, crossing your fingers only gets you so far,” Tate said. “He’s tough and he’s going to do whatever he can to be on the field and help us, but we’ve got to protect him.”

Tate has been critical of the Lions’ protection problems before, too. In October, he told reporters all the sacks Stafford was taking were weighing on his mind. From 97.1 FM’s website: “We definitely think about it. It can be frustrating at times when you run a good route and you’re wide open and you see your quarterback back there scrambling for his life. It can be frustrating. It’s kind of hard not to start cutting routes off early when every time you run something you look back and he’s being pressured or having to run for his life.”

As one of the Lions’ most senior players, Tate has the right to speak his mind, offer up suggestions on what needs to change and defend players or coaches that he feels may be getting a bum rap. In this case, I believe he was talking about the offensive line — whether that’s specific players, the group as a whole, the coaching there, or some combination, I don’t know — but he should have been more clear to end any speculation.

A, Tion Green had a nice debut last week, running for 51 yards on 11 carries and scoring his first career touchdown. An undrafted rookie out of Cincinnati, Green is the type of player everyone roots for. He has a great story and an infectious personality, and it was good to finally see him get his shot.

Tion Green scores his first NFL touchdown in the third quarter of the Lions' 44-20 loss to the Ravens on Sunday.(Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press)

I fielded a lot of questions this week about what Green’s role will be going forward, and I think it’s worth giving him a longer look. This running game has been so bad for so long that there’s really nothing to lose at this point. Green won’t solve all that ails the Lions in that department, but he can’t hurt.

Now, two things to note. First, it typically takes rookie running backs awhile to get comfortable with their role in pass protection, so that may limit how much Green can be on the field. Green explained some of what he’s dealing with on Monday, noting the Lions audible so much at the line of scrimmage that it can be tough to keep pace. “I think I get better and better each day. Just mentally just seeing things, recognizing the defense, seeing fronts, recognizing shades and stuff. A lot of those things we didn’t have to know in college, so now I can go down and see a four-down front or an odd front and identify who I have in the protection. Back then in college I just had this guy to that guy. I was only responsible for a guy to my side.”

Second, it’s important to point out how rare it is that an NFL team keeps a fifth running back on its roster all season who’s not playing. Green didn’t dress for any of the Lions’ first 11 games, but despite all their injuries, general manager Bob Quinn saw enough in Green to keep him around. That tells me Quinn is high on Green’s future, and he has more upside than simply taking over for Zach Zenner when he becomes a restricted free agent in March.

Q, If Caldwell won a Super Bowl as an OC and that’s a main reason he got a HC job, why isn’t he calling the plays?? I.e. Sean Payton, Mike McCarthy – @ChiefBigga

A. If you go back to when the Lions hired Caldwell in 2014, reports at the time suggested Ravens coach John Harbaugh was looking to change play callers had Caldwell not gotten the Lions job. I don’t think Harbaugh has ever acknowledged that publicly, but after their Super Bowl win, when Caldwell assumed play-calling duties for the final four games of the regular season and the playoffs, the Ravens finished 29th in offense the next year.

Caldwell had a chance to install himself as play caller when he canned Joe Lombardi and named Jim Bob Cooter his offensive coordinator midway through the 2015 season. Caldwell has always delegated coaching responsibilities to his coordinators, and I believe that’s the right way for him to go.